Interaction of paired sensory stimuli and conduction in peripheral nerves

¹ Laboratory of Psychophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

It is well known from directional hearing that a sound source is localized in the middle plane when the sound reaches both ears simultaneously. If there is a time difference between the sound's arrival at the two ears, the sound source is localized to one or the other side, depending on which side receives it first. A time difference as small as 1 msec is enough to produce full lateralization. Thus the shift in the localization of a sensation can be used to measure small time intervals. This shift in localization appears to be not a specific ability of the ear, but a general quality of many sense organs with large surfaces. Even in the sense of taste, the position of the sensation on the tongue changes when the time difference between two separately placed stimuli is altered. If the time delay is used to estimate the speed of conduction for different sensations such as touch, warmth, electrical stimulation, and taste, the resulting estimates are greatly in excess of the values obtained by direct measurements as reported in the literature.

Submitted on March 29, 1963

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